Wesley J. Smith

A New Zealand woman who went to China to get fetal tissue therapies for her ALS (motor neuron disease) has died. Allegedly, there was an early improvement and then she slipped back into the disease. This reminds me of the Korean umbilical cord blood patient who apparently got onto her feet after . . . . Continue Reading »

I am not quite sure how and why I got embroiled in this hit by the left wing media watchdog group, Media Matters, against radio and television talk show host Glenn Beck. But I did, compelling me to respond. Apparently Beck criticized Hillary Clinton for suggesting that the issue of national health . . . . Continue Reading »

I have a column in the NRO today, warning that infanticide promotion is no longer limited to the Peter Singers of the world but is becoming an Establishment project. And that is very bad news for profoundly disabled and catastrophically ill babies.Here is the heart of the piece: Arguments about . . . . Continue Reading »

Here’s some more good news on the adult stem cell front: Dogs with muscular dystrophy were radically improved with injections of their own adult stem cells. From the story: “Sharon Hesterlee, vice president of translational research at the Muscular Dystrophy Association, called the . . . . Continue Reading »

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics, an independent United Kingdom bioethics think tank, has issued its recommended guidelines for the treatment of prematurely born infants. The very good news is that it rejected infanticide out of hand: “The Council has concluded that the active ending of life . . . . Continue Reading »

So, a new think tank, with the eye-glazing name Center for Inquiry-Transnational, has been started to promote public policy based on “science,” instead of religion. (Naturally, it got a big play in the Washington Post.) But this is nonsensical. Science is a method of obtaining and . . . . Continue Reading »

This is how I see it: Generally speaking, people want treatments for terrible diseases and injuries. They also are queasy about embryonic stem cell research and disapprove of cloning for any reason. But the yearning for cures trumps most people’s ethical concerns about ESCR, so long as they . . . . Continue Reading »

He talks! If you want to hear my first Brave New Bioethics podcast, hit this link. If you want to subscribe so that you receive them whenever they come out, simply hit this link and follow the instructions. Thank you for your interest in Secondhand Smoke and my . . . . Continue Reading »

Science is reporting that one of the seemingly intractable problems facing ESCR has been the propensity of embryonic stem cells to cause tumors, may have been solved. Researchers in Australia believe they may have found a way to prevent tumor formation by encompassing the cells in seaweed extract, . . . . Continue Reading »

Some researchers have suggested that umbilical cord blood stem cells might be as pluripotent as researchers theorize embryonic stem cells to be, that is, that they can be transformed into any kind of cell. Both theories remain unproven since it hasn’t yet been done yet with any kind of stem . . . . Continue Reading »